Winter archery makes us better shots

Indoor archery shooting gives hunters practice all year

Many people from all over the state have told me they shoot in an archery league to stay sharp during the winter. Others have developed other rather ingenious ways to conduct winter practice.

The primary function is to shoot enough to pick up the bow, draw, aim and shoot without feeling any discomfort. Stay away from shooting of any kind for a month or more, and the bow often feels a bit heavy or uncomfortable in your hands. The trick is to stay comfortable with a bow all winter.

My basement has a 25-yard archery range in it. I can shoot every day if the mood moves me, which it often does.

This allows me to shoot all winter 

Shooting a few arrows makes the bow feel five pounds heavier than it really is, and the back and shoulder muscles get sore easily. Shooting is the best cure for any of these problems, and it makes accurate shooting much easier.

If a person just has no place to shoot, they can still draw their bow and develop some strength training. Here are several examples of things one can do during winter months to stay comfortable drawing a bow.

A buddy does his shooting out in his cavernous garage. A target is set up at one end of the garage, and he can shoot at distances from 15 to 25 yards. Of course, on a bitter cold day, five or six shots is about all he can handle. He needs a small wood stove inside to make shooting warmer and more fun.

Another friend has a 17-yard archery range in his basement. He is talking about cutting a hole in the wall which would allow him to shoot at 25 yards, and it would more closely simulate shooting from an enclosed hunting blind.

Practice at shooting while sitting or standing 

He practices standing up and sitting down while shooting, and this is good. As a rule, he normally shoots while sitting. He can don some fairly heavy clothing similar to what he would wear for December hunts or he can wear lighter clothing to simulate shooting in October.

Still another gent I know does shoot some, but he walks around his house, comes to full draw, centers the sights on the nearest light bulb, telephone or drawer pull, and he finds it is excellent practice. Of course, he doesn't release the string, as in a shot.

Most people when they draw on a deer have to fiddle around a bit to get their sight pin on target. All of that uses up time, and if the buck is walking away, it makes people hurry. When they hurry, they usually make a mistake and take a bad shot or miss entirely.

Not this guy. He practices all winter drawing an empty bow and concentrating on putting the sight where he wants the arrow to go. He works hard at it, and when he is shooting he will do the same thing with an arrow on the string. The bow comes up and back, and the arrow is on its way. This only comes from perfect practice.

Look at your situation and determine what you can do 

Such practice makes target acquisition quick and easy. He always nails his anchor point, and if he is on his anchor point and the sight is on the target, a twitch of the finger on a release sends the arrow downrange to where he wants it to go.

Practice can take many forms, but it's important to become somewhat committed to handling your bow during the winter months. I shoot as often as possible, as I follow my no-nonsense method of drawing, achieving my anchor point, aiming and shooting.

It gives me the daily practice that I need, and the result is that when it comes time to shoot a deer during bow season, I am ready. My muscles are tuned up, my eyes are sharp, and when I hit my anchor point, a slight adjustment tweaks my aim and the arrow is gone.

Many hunters wait until two or three weeks before the season opens, to start practicing. It's better than nothing, but the people who are the finest shots practice shooting on a regular basis.

Their muscles are all peaked out at a comfortable draw weight, and their eyes automatically center on the aiming point, and all it takes is to touch the trigger, and the arrow goes where it should. It's simple.

That's why good hunters practice all winter.

Working on our tree stands

An open tree stand like this means a hunter can't move a muscle. I prefer more cover, especially on both side and above me.

 

I've hunted from wide-open tree stands and from stands that have just enough room through which to shoot. Which do I like best?

The answer, for me at least, is obvious. It's easy for me to sit still, and I'm always positioned so a buck will never wind me, but the truth is, either tree stand will work if the hunter is downwind from deer and can sit still.

My preference leans heavily in favor of cover. I love cedar and pine trees, and have been known to fill in a few holey spots with boughs cut elsewhere on my property. I don't want to be entirely screened by brush in a tree, but my idea is to have enough limbs and branches nearby to provide what I need for enough cover to break up my silhouette.

Work to mute the light from dawn or dusk to create shadows.

 

I like a mix of shadows and light, and an unbroken dark blob can be as revealing to a deer as a wide-open area with a big blob in the middle. The trick is to achieve some sense of shadowy balance; not too much and not too little.

The hunter needs enough room to draw, aim and shoot with a bow. The hunter doesn't need to be worrying about bumping limbs or hitting them while taking a shot. It's possible to be so concealed you can't shoot.

On the other hand, it helps to have some background foliage behind you. A good stand needs some cover to the right and left sides, and some cover from cedar or pine boughs overhead will add to the shadowed effect that we need.

What a deer sees is what is most important to hunters. All trees, even thick cedars and pines, have gaps where light shows through. I just don't want too much light shining through where I'm sitting. I want the area to be shadowed but not completely blacked out.

Create your stands now & brush them in early for deer season.

 

One trick some hunters use is to prepare their stand now. Hopefully they know where deer will travel, where they come from and where they go, and then have one person stand on the ground at the ideal location for a shot.

Study the area like an artist studies a landscape, and determine what needs some help in the way of pine boughs and what doesn't. Be careful when adding boughs so the fresh-cut limb ends will not be visible by deer. Heavy twine can be used to tie the boughs in place.

Have a buddy climb into the stand and you hunker down in a squatting position at the height of a deer's head, and study it. Pay close attention to what looks like the proper blend of shadows and softer but lighter areas. Limbs placed horizontally three or four feet overhead will add to the shadowed effect, and sometimes it is just a matter of putting a clump of pine needles in the right spot to make it work.

My reason for loving cedar and pine trees is there is year 'round foliage plus the natural scent of the trees. One hour of work on a tree stand can improve its effectiveness.

Of special importance is to complete this job as soon as possible. Don't wait until mid-September to do it or you are liable to spook deer from this stand location.

Do it right & ways in and ways out & it can be a good stand for years.

 

A buddy of mine had a similar set-up, and hunted the same tree for 10 years until someone sneaked in and started hunting it when he was elsewhere or not hunting that day. They rearranged pine boughs to suit themselves, and soon the stand was worthless.

Should you decide to do this, treat the area like it is your private morel mushroom patch or your favorite ruffed grouse or woodcock covert. Don't breathe a word of it to anyone, and hunt it by yourself.

Good stands remain good only as long as no one else can climb into them when the hunter isn't looking. Trespass on private land is a major problem, and hunters who brag about shooting a big buck from a particular area are simply offering others an unwelcome invitation.

Keep quiet, don't tell anyone where it is, and have two or three ways to get into it and out of it after hunting. Sometimes it's worth hiking an extra half-mile to avoid detection. All's fair in love, war and hunting whitetails from a tree stand.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Steelhead fly-fishing tips

It's a well known fact. Ask any beginning steelhead fisherman, and they will tell you just how hard these lake-run rainbow trout are to catch. Many spend years before accidentally hooking one.

Books have been written about them. I've written three on the topic myself, including a limited edition, and even though when pushed hard, I will admit they can be hard to catch when they are not in the river just yet.

Melting snow, will raise the water level a tiny bit, but we need more warm weather to melt more snow, warm the water slightly and raise the water level.

If the weather stays on the warm side, we could see some steelhead enter the river by this weekend. But don't go out the door with your insulated waders and rod just yet.

Don't get too excited but watch for several days of warm weather.

My three books --

•Steelheading For Everybody

•Steelhead In North America

•Great Lakes Steelhead Flies

-- and the mystique that surrounds these game fish trouble some anglers. The mystery of this lake-run rainbow trout is usually part of the smoke-and-mirrors show that advanced anglers talk about. Contact me at this email address to get information about my steelhead books: Scoop's Books

The stories are meant to discourage fishermen, and in many cases, the falsehoods and lies work. It's nothing more than one angler shining on another to discourage them before they even begin fishing. It's nothing but a lie to keep anglers away.

These freaky falsehoods are basically tactics to drive neophyte anglers away from a favorite fishing area, but if an angler does not know the river, they can't catch fish with any degree of regularity. Locate some fish, as guide Mark Rinckey of Honor and I do with a great deal of regularity, and some anglers may think this highly-touted game fish are easy to catch.

Some days they are easy. Other days they are not. Go figure.

Any screwy suspicions spoken about steelhead fishing is nothing but reverse propaganda in the minds of good fishermen. This sport is easier than it needs to be, and it's certainly easier than others would have you believe.

Catching steelhead can be downright simple … at times. It can be extremely difficult at times. Savvy fishermen soon learn to take the good with the bad.

Be there, at the right time, fish the water properly and steelhead are not much more difficult to catch than bluegills or yellow perch are in the spring. One principle applies to all game fish species: Anglers must find the fish, and cast well, before they can taste the sweetness of angling success.

Fly-fishing for steelheads is my favorite way to catch them.

There are many ways to catch steelhead and this holds true with most game fish species. All methods produce during certain periods, but they may work best at other times of year. For me, stalking visible steelhead on shallow rivers and casting flies to them is as good as it gets, and I made a living for 10 years guiding fly fishermen to good catches using some of the following methods.

•One thing to remember is that experience on the water is necessary. I've taken beginning anglers, and under my tutelage, had them catching steelhead the first day. They thought the fish were easy to catch.

•The problem with fly fishing is that people are in a big rush. They want fish now, and bail off the river bank, go splashing into the clear river and spook fish off spawning beds. They then wonder why they can't catch anything.

•Forget about wading up or down the river, and spend more time on the river bank looking for fish. Walk slowly, stop often and study the water through polarized sunglasses. It's a method much like still-hunting deer, and if they try to rush the process, they fish spook. The deer run away and the steelhead swim into the log jams.

•Slow down – way down -- and take your time. My toughest problem when guiding steelhead fishermen was curbing their enthusiastic impatience. This old method worked back in the 1960s and it still works now providing people follow some easily understood rules.

Don't get into the river until a fish is found. Avoid splashing around.

•Stay out of the water unless casting to visible fish. Don't become another stupid fisherman that wades downstream and spooks every steelhead around. Barring a quick warm-up, snowmelt and run-off, anglers have at least four to six weeks before steelhead numbers begin moving upstream. Use this time period to study these tactics, memorize them and use them this spring.

•Instead of wading downstream, walk the bank, stop, start and look for fish. Use any available cover and a successful stalk may take 15-30 minutes to move close enough for a short and accurate cast.

•Wear a billed cap, pull it low over Polarized sunglasses, and pause frequently to study the water. A fresh-run mint-silver female is most difficult to spot in the water, and sometimes all that can be seen is a shadow. Males are darker colored, and their gaudy gill covers and cheeks are easily seen. Don't look for the whole fish; often all you'll see is a tail, a white mouth or a shadow apparently moving across the bottom.

•Watch the fish and study them. If they are going on and off the bed, it means they are spooky. Relax, take your time, and wait until the hen starts rolling up on her side and the male fertilizes the eggs with a jet of white milt. Remember, if nothing else: never fish for the female; try only for male fish.

Fish only for male (buck) steelhead.

•Why, you ask?
It's easy to figure out. There are usually more males than females, If you spook a female, it will dash away and hide. If there is no hen present, there is no reason for males to hang around.

•Which fly to use?
The old philosophy is always a good bet. Use bright attractor patterns on bright days, and dark patterns on overcast days. Use a tippet or leader testing six pounds, and perfect your accuracy somewhere other than on the river. Plop a fly down on top of a fish and it will spook. Carry several bright and dark patterns in sizes No. 4, 6 and 8, and experiment with them.

•Ease slowly into the water and move softly without splashing the water or crunching gravel underfoot. If the fish start moving back and forth, stop, remain still, and wait for them to resume spawning. Take your time, and ease gently into casting position. It can take a long time, and I've spent hours trying to catch a gaudy buck steelhead. This method requires constant attention to detail, great patience and accurate casts. Don't try to hurry things.

•Study the water current and depth. The fly must be cast far enough upstream to be scratching gravel when it comes to the male. If the female hits the fly. do nothing. Hook and fight the female, and all the males will disappear. Hook a male, and it's not uncommon to catch two or three fish without unduly spooking the hen or harming the resource.

•The fly must ease past his nose. Set up a rhythmic casting pace; cast upstream past the male, strip in line as the fly drifts downstream, and once it passes the male, lift the fly out and cast again. Cast, strip line, ease the fly past his nose, lift it out and cast again. Use a hook hone to sharpen hook points. They soon get dull when bouncing over gravel.

•The male will often move out of the way of a fly. Repetitive casting angers the fish, and they will often hit. Watch the fish's head, and when it moves two or three inches when the fly is near, it has the fly and is moving it out of the bed. Set the hook. If you wait for a hard strike, you'll never hook a spawning spring steelhead.

Don't wade up and down the rivers and spook fish.

Common courtesy has its place on a spring steelhead stream. If you spot an angler up ahead casting to bedded fish, walk wide around the area away from the bank. Don't wade up or down the river past him and spook his fish. If you are fishing to bedded fish, and see an angler coming, holler and politely ask them to make a wide detour around you and the fish. People with common sense will do so. Stupid people with no manners will not!

Those who never had any brains or too little fetching up will ignore your request. A steelhead isn't worth getting into a fight over, but I've seen days when I wish I'd taken those Charles Atlas courses offered when I was a kid.

This is just one of many steelhead techniques but it happens to be my favorite, and in the future, we'll share other methods that produce. But one thing to remember is to learn something new every day.

It's hard to do, but trust me. Unspooked steelhead are much easier to catch than those that have been dodging snag hooks, clumsy wading, and people who care nothing about the rights of other people. Too many folks want a steelhead at any cost, and as quickly as possible, but they have no clue about how to go about catching them.

Patience, fly presentation and good timing are three keys to spring steelhead fishing success.

Looking ahead to turkey season

Turkey hunting is fun even if a bird isn’t shot. Calling produced for me.

Anyone who spends any time reading my daily blogs knows I am a turkey-hunting addict. Deer hunting may be what I enjoy most, but the only reason is because turkey hunting seasons don't last long enough. We have more than three months to go but I’m juiced already.

It's possible to hunt whitetails during October, November, December and January 1. Turkey hunting is much different.

Even if you hunt the whole season as has happened in the past, a hunter will get in about six weeks of hunting. It's a far cry from three full months of deer seasons. And when I can't turkey hunt, I buy used books on turkey hunting to read. Contact me at < dave@daverichey.com > if you have any turkey books to sell.

Turkey hunting is like selling a house: Location is everything.

My turkey hunting often allows me to pass up a bird or two early in my season, and I've been known to pass up several gobblers that provided easy shots only to end the season without a bird. Why, you  ask?

It's rather elementary. By not shooting the first, second or third bird that come to my calls, it allows me the maximum time in the field and the greatest potential to experience everything turkey hunting has to offer.

Shooting a gobbler, whether a jake or a longbeard, is not why I hunt these keen-eyed birds. I hunt them for the intense satisfaction that comes from making the most of my opportunities.

That means there are more opportunities to fool a gobbler.  More chances to listen to a big Tom gobble and double-gobble back at me, and more opportunities to watch the blue-white-red head of a highly charged-up gobbler move through the fields and woods in my direction.

Three years ago I was hunting a strutting zone 10 miles from home. Any bird that came to me would have to cross an open ridge, walk down the small hill, and cross another 200 yards of open field to get within shooting range.

The gobblers greeted the dawn from their roost trees, and behind me were some hen turkeys. Once the first gobbler sounded off, I held off from answering. He gobbled again, and then a big gobbler sounded off with a double-gobble.

Gobbles, double-gobbles and more made the ground shake. What a moment.

I gave a  soft yelp, and that livened up the hens several hundred yards behind me. The gobblers sounded off again, and I answered softly, and sat back to wait. The hens began calling, and I was perfectly positioned in a strut zone where gobblers and hens would meet. Hens were coming from  behind me, and the gobblers were coming toward me.

Ten minutes later the gobblers stood atop yonder hill, gobbled again when they saw my two hens and one jake-decoy. They were spread out like soldier, and began their advance on my position. They would stop and start, and I'm mentally urging them to hurry before the hens arrived and possibly lead them away.

The three longbeards and one jake started running when I made scratching sounds in the dry leaves like feeding birds. My shotgun was up and laying across my knees, and I was set up properly. It took those gobblers 10 seconds to cross the remaining 100 yards.

The lead gobbler ran up to poor Henrietta, my battered and bedraggled hen decoy, and knocked her off the stake while the other gobblers went after the jake decoy.

Poor Henrietta was laying flat on the ground with the large gobbler astraddle her, and the other birds were working Jakie over in a bad way. I watched this fascinating performance for another 10 seconds, and since it was now late in the season, the gobbler stood erect with his head up to survey the second hen decoy, and a load of 3-inch magnum No. 5 copper-plated pellets took him down.

Henrietta, my hen decoy, was spurred badly and now looks worse for wear,

The other gobblers stopped, saw the Big Boss Bird laying on the ground, and took off. I heard the hens flush behind me right after the shot, and then, all the real birds were gone.

I've called in two different gobblers on seperate hunts over the years when my wife shot them with a bow. It was pretty exciting, and each bird went 10 feet straight up into the air as the arrow drove through them, and both fell dead on the ground.

Turkey hunting is exciting. Shooting the bird is anticlimactic, and the hunt lives on long after the bird has been eaten and other thoughts of the hunt have faded away. Calling in a big gobbler, watching him approach, and then offering a shot is what triggers intense feelings in an addicted hunter like me.

The shot is nothing more than the final act in this outdoor drama. Sometimes the gobbler wins, and sometimes he doesn't, but what counts the most is the actual hunt. This is a pastime where the hunt is far more important than the kill.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors